| #### Chapter 12 |

| #### #### It follows that we must allow contrariety to Quantity: whenever we speak of great and small, our notions acknowledge this contrariety by evolving opposite images, as also when we refer to many and few; indeed, "few" and "many" call for similar treatment to "small" and "great." #### "Many," predicated of the inhabitants of a house, does duty for "more": "few" people are said to be in the theatre instead of "less." #### "Many," again, necessarily involves a large numerical plurality. This plurality can scarcely be a relative; it is simply an expansion of number, its contrary being a contraction. #### The same applies to the continuous [magnitude], the notion of which entails prolongation to a distant point. #### Quantity, then, appears whenever there is a progression from the unit or the point: if either progression comes to a rapid halt, we have respectively "few" and "small"; if it goes forward and does not quickly cease, "many" and "great." #### What, we may be asked, is the limit of this progression? What, we retort, is the limit of beauty, or of heat? Whatever limit you impose, there is always a "hotter"; yet "hotter" is accounted a relative, "hot" a pure quality. #### In sum, just as there is a Reason-Principle of Beauty, so there must be a Reason-Principle of greatness, participation in which makes a thing great, as the Principle of beauty makes it beautiful. #### To judge from these instances, there is contrariety in Quantity. Place we may neglect as not strictly coming under the category of Quantity; if it were admitted, "above" could only be a contrary if there were something in the universe which was "below": as referring to the partial, the terms "above" and "below" are used in a purely relative sense, and must go with "right" and "left" into the category of Relation. #### Syllable and discourse are only indirectly quantities or substrates of Quantity; it is voice that is quantitative: but voice is a kind of Motion; it must accordingly in any case [quantity or no quantity] be referred to Motion, as must activity also. ####  |